Bhumibols fatherly intervention was beamed around the world and instantly halted the slaughter. Western people ask me whether it is a paradox that I am King but support democracy, he said. I have to tell them that in Thailand the King is the guarantor of democracy. Royal supporters have ensured the clip is replayed on television and cinema screens until the present day. The overwhelming impression for the 50 million television viewers, and those blinking at the grainy images for two decades thereafter, was that their monarch had saved the nation from immediate disintegration. Four years later,